When the Colorado Buffaloes were herded back from the portal leading to their dressing room at the stadium's southwest corner, and directed across the field to accept the Centennial Cup on Saturday afternoon, they did so with the collective enthusiasm of students about to receive perfect attendance certificates at a junior high school assembly.

Let's put it this way: Ralphie — the real Buffalo — covered the same ground and more a lot faster, both before the game and at halftime.

"It was just that we worked so hard, worked so long, we know we can do better," CU senior defensive end Marquez Herrod said later of the workmanlike, 24-3 victory over Colorado State at Invesco Field at Mile High.

Slide show

"That was a good outing," Herrod said. "That's OK for those who were seeing us play for the first time. But we know what we can do, we know what we're capable of, and that wasn't our best game. We can play a lot better. We can play a lot faster. We were happy that we got the win, but we know that we have a lot more potential here."

Herrod and the CU defense helped set the tone, neutralizing the CSU running game.

Rams running back Raymond Carter finished with only 10 net yards on 11 carries — and only two of those carries came in the second half, after CU opened up a huge lead and CSU had to all but abandon the running game.

Even disregarding the 12 yards lost on three sacks of Rams freshman quarterback Pete Thomas, CSU still averaged fewer than 3 yards per rush.

Advertisement

The contrast to 2009 was stark: In Boulder a year ago, CSU's largely veteran offensive line was heroic as the Rams took a 20-3 lead and hung on for a 23-17 victory.

"We played physical today," Herrod said. "Last year against these guys, we did very bad up front. They did come out and hit us in the mouth, but we made a lot of mistakes. We weren't in our gaps. Guys weren't filling behind, like they should. We didn't execute the defense.

"Today, we filled the gaps we were supposed to fill, we did our jobs, and everybody did what they were supposed to do. We were very comfortable in our defense, sure of our assignments and played well."

The Buffs' other starting defensive end, Josh Hartigan, said: "It was all about preparation during the week. We knew we had to come out in this game and get off the ball and control the line of scrimmage."

The Rams, not surprisingly given Thomas' true freshman status, stuck with "max" protection approaches through most of the afternoon, and all three of those sacks came in the final minutes after the game was out of hand.

"Those guys, they hold in seven or eight sometimes," Herrod said. "That's what you game plan for, and that's why we rotated so much upfront. We were trying to keep guys fresh and keep guys ready to rush. If they have so many guys in there, it's hard to get pressure on them. But I think we did an adequate job."

Thomas was 24-of-33 for 196 yards. Although 15 of the 24 completions were to wide receivers, and the CSU passing game can feature slants and short routes, it still was striking that Thomas so rarely went downfield. His longest completion was 18 yards. The longest of his three interceptions was 21 yards beyond the line of scrimmage.

Despite coach Steve Fairchild's game-week assurances that he wouldn't scale back the Rams' offensive ambition or scope because of Thomas' youth and collegiate inexperience, it appeared that happened.

But the lack of a running game added to the challenge for Thomas, and the Buffs' defensive linemen said they were conscious of putting enough pressure on the young quarterback even in those max-protect situations to limit his options.

"With eight guys in there to protect sometimes, we had to get off the ball and control the play and not let them look to those deep passes," Hartigan said. "Controlling the line of scrimmage was really the key, and everything fell into place after that."